‘Death and the Woman’ : Looking at Francis Webb’s ‘Lament for St Maria Goretti’
Abstract
The article compares Webb’s poem ’Lament’ with sculptures by the Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti. Although the two do not share any religious, philosophic or intellectual tradition, the author argues that they do share an artistic vision. Brennan chooses the point of comparison for two reasons: ‘to emphasise that the ways in which absence and silence operate in literature and language should not be divorced from the ways in which they operate in other art forms’ and ‘because an aesthetics of vision that focuses on absence may help readers to see more clearly how Webb’s language operates to make absence present’ (291).
Please sign in to access this article and the rest of our archive.
Published 1 May 2004 in Volume 21 No. 3. Subjects: Literary portrayal, Religious poetry, Roman Catholicism, Francis Webb.
Cite as: Brennan, Bernadette. ‘‘Death and the Woman’ : Looking at Francis Webb’s ‘Lament for St Maria Goretti’.’ Australian Literary Studies, vol. 21, no. 3, 2004, doi: 10.20314/als.759a66e69b.